"Shall we write?"
"Will you?"
"Yes. I have so much to say, now that you are going. I am glad you came. I am glad I told you everything. Please believe that my heart is enlisted in your new enterprise; that I pray for your success and welfare and happiness. Will you always remember that?"
"Yes, dear."
"Then—I mustn't keep you a moment longer. Good-bye."
"Good-bye."
They stood a moment, neither stirring; then he put his arms around her; she touched his shoulder once more, lightly with her cheek—a second's contact; then he kissed her clasped hands and was gone.
CHAPTER XI
Quarren arrived in town about twilight. Taxis were no longer for him nor he for them. Suit-case and walking-stick in hand, he started up Lexington Avenue still excited and exhilarated from his leave-taking with Strelsa. An almost imperceptible fragrance seemed to accompany him, freshening the air around him in the shabby streets of Ascalon; the heat-cursed city grew cooler, sweeter for her memory. Through the avenue's lamp-lit dusk passed the pale ghosts of Gath and the phantoms of the Philistines, and he thought their shadowy forms moved less wearily; and that strange faces looked less wanly at him as they grew out of the night—"clothed in scarlet and ornaments of gold"—and dissolved again into darkness.